28 U.S.C. § 481
Section 481 · Automated case information
Amended 1 time on record
Applied in 5 court decisions — leading case Doyle v. Brock (1987)
Most recently applied in 855 F. Supp. 2d 329 - Solis v. Local 234, Transport Workers Union (August 2011)
How often courts cite this section
Court decisions citing this, by year.Markers show enactment, consequential amendments, and circuit splits over this section — watch for a citation surge after a change or a disagreement. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
(a) The Director of the Administrative Office of the United States Courts shall ensure that each United States district court has the automated capability readily to retrieve information about the status of each case in such court.
(b)(1) In carrying out subsection (a), the Director shall prescribe—
(A) the information to be recorded in district court automated systems; and
(B) standards for uniform categorization or characterization of judicial actions for the purpose of recording information on judicial actions in the district court automated systems.
(2) The uniform standards prescribed under paragraph (1)(B) of this subsection shall include a definition of what constitutes a dismissal of a case and standards for measuring the period for which a motion has been pending.
(c) Each United States district court shall record information as prescribed pursuant to subsection (b) of this section.